


be ruled by me / as long as you follow

by saaarebas



Category: If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Shakespeare, i couldn't rest till i wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saaarebas/pseuds/saaarebas
Summary: "The hours after reading James’ letter pass in a daze. I pack in a hurry, shoving clothes at random into a suitcase. I don't know how long I'll be gone, or even really where to go, but the one idea I have is an eighteen-hour drive away."Yes, it's another reunion fic.
Relationships: James Farrow/Oliver Marks
Comments: 22
Kudos: 174





	be ruled by me / as long as you follow

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this bad boy for almost eight months, and to be honest, I'm still not happy with it, but I can't look at it and nitpick anymore. I might come back to it someday and refine it but in the meantime, I'm posting it here in the hopes that some other lost soul fresh from finishing IWWV might enjoy it. I may also write a better summary later. 
> 
> The two titles come from the lines Oliver says to James during their R+J performance, and from Fleetwood Mac's "As Long as You Follow" which might be THE gay devotion anthem.

_"I've been dreaming_

_Thought it was in vain_

_Ah, but now you're here_

_Can't believe that you're back again_

_Now I know I can't lose_

_As long as you follow"_

Scene I — CHICAGO

The hours after reading James’ letter pass in a daze. I pack in a hurry, shoving clothes at random into a suitcase. I don't know how long I'll be gone, or even really where to go, but the one idea I have is an eighteen-hour drive away. I throw on my shoes and am halfway to my car before I remember Meredith will be back in a few hours and will doubtless be confused to find an empty house. I grab a pen and an old receipt from the fridge and make a quick note. It's perfunctory, barely even legible, and doesn't contain a quarter of the multitude of things I owe her. 

_Meredith— gone for a trip. I am fine & will call you soon. - Oliver _

I leave it on a small table by the front door under the seashell-shaped bowl where we keep our keys, where I know she’ll see it as soon as she comes in. I grab my suitcase. I feel bad about leaving so suddenly, but my body seems to propel me out the door in spite of all my reservations. Is it possible? I want it to be possible. I want it so badly to be true that my teeth ache with it. I pause, my hand on the car door handle. If I leave now, Meredith may forgive me for disappearing, but our relationship, whatever it is or could be, will be over whether I find James or not.

For a moment, I see the line of two futures stretched out in front of me. In one, there's me and Meredith curled up on the sofa, her head resting on my shoulder; her hair fanned out across her pillow, one red curl wrapped around my finger; us, happy and laughing, arms around each other, and for once, no dark ghost in the room other than some grey hairs calling forth the spectre of age. In the other, a beach, sandy and warm; James, whole and healthy and ridiculously alive, smiling at me with that same soft, almost boyish smile. 

I know that at least one of those futures may not exist. James could be dead and his body swept out to sea, picked clean by the fish and half-buried in the silt at the bottom of the ocean. Or worse still, alive but indifferent to me, able to move on when I most assuredly cannot. 

It doesn't matter. At that moment, I know as sure as I've known anything that I would walk away from a thousand happy lives just for the chance to see James again. Happy, alive, whole. And I do. 

Scene II — DEL NORTE

The beach in Del Norte looks exactly the same— long and empty, picturesque without being overdone. There’s the same weathered sign up asking visitors not to litter, which gave the impression that the only reason it had remained as yet undefaced was that no one could think of a creative enough change to make. And beyond that, a lighthouse, barely visible across the trees on the far edge of the beach, that James and I had drunkenly entertained ideas of breaking into and exploring more than a decade ago.

I allow myself one moment of reminiscing, since I'm already knee-deep in memory lane, remembering the day James and I spent here, the mystery around our missing clothes. I remember waking up hungover and seeing the sand grains stuck to James’ brown shoulder as he slept beside me, hair tousled and soft in the sun. How bright and golden he was. How hard he was to look at even before I knew why. I stay in the memory until it starts to ache, pulling at my chest in a way that's become familiar, then I tamp it down. I pull my car into the parking lot and lurch out with a newfound urgency that is somehow a surprise. I don't even turn off the engine. I stumble over the rocky top of the beach and kick off my shoes as soon as the pebbles turn into sand. I find a spot high enough up that I'm safe from the tide, which seems to creep up the sand with each blue churning wave, and settle in to wait. 

I wait for hours. I know without really looking that James isn't here. I don't feel his presence— or the presence of anyone really, although occasionally my vigil is interrupted by lone joggers and people walking their dogs. And still I wait, as the morning folds into the afternoon and the afternoon darkens and matures. I'm not ready to give up yet. I've waited far too long to give up this early. 

The sun inches down towards the horizon by degrees, turning the sand a pale orange and the ocean a fiery red. As twilight begins to blanket the beach, my doubts return in full force. Have I been a fool? The passage, written in James’ cramped academic hand, was vague at best. It's in my bag in the car, but of course, I know what it says. 

_To give my tongue that heat to ask your help; which if you shall refuse, when I am dead, for that I am a man, pray see me buried._

I want him to be alive so badly. Could it be that the strength of that wish is injecting a hidden meaning into James’ last words that simply isn't there? I remember when he recited Pericles to me last, lying beside me on this very beach, saltwater dripping from the ends of his hair. Maybe that was all he meant to reference when he scribbled out that passage on his last night alive. Just a parting gift, a reminder of a shared memory of one of the best days of my life. Still, if James is alive anywhere, if he is waiting for me, he's here. 

I think of another conversation we had back when we were rehearsing for Caesar;

_ME: And I shall set this foot of mine as far as who goes farthest._

_JAMES: There’s a bargain made._

And here's the truth of it, which I knew without knowing since the first year at Dellecher; I would follow James anywhere, in anything, for as long as he'd let me. I will follow him in this last thing too. 

Eventually, night comes fully to Del Norte and a cold wind blowing in off the ocean forces me back inside the car. I huddle in the front seat and warm my hands over the vent which hisses and burns with a pleasing heat, stifling a yawn. I try to fight sleep as long as I can, but ultimately I can't keep my eyes open any longer and console myself that if James is coming, it's unlikely to be in the middle of the night. Still, I plan only to rest for a few hours and then resume my vigil at the beach. In the meantime, I lay curled up in my seat with a soliloquy of Macbeth’s ringing in my head; Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, till the words turn into a chant and the chant into a song and the song into a lullaby that cradles me and pushes me out into sleep. 

LATER

From the moment I awake, I already know I have slept later than I wanted to. The sun is up, bright and pale, there are birds singing in a nearby tree, and my joints are painfully stiff from sleeping at this awkward angle. I check the time on my watch and am seized with a sudden panic that I have missed James. It's already 9 o'clock, and though James was never a particularly early riser, it is still late enough that he may have come and gone.

I hurry out of the car and back to my post on the sand. I stretch my aching limbs and try to calm my racing heart. I am alone on the beach. I am alone. 

The tide is farther out now than it was last night, and I preoccupy myself with picking through the flotsam and jetsam brought in on the tide. I collect shards of sea glass, their colourful edges worn to softness, and strangely shaped bits of driftwood as pale and twisted as bone. I'm crouched down in the middle of examining a shell crusted over with barnacles when I hear the unmistakable crunch of feet on sand. My stomach lurches, and for a moment, I actually think I might be sick, but the feeling passes and I force myself to look up. 

When I see James, a great pressure releases in my chest and I almost crumple with relief. Up until this moment, I wasn't sure, not fully. But there he is. He picks his way towards me through the sand, stepping neatly around piles of black seaweed even though his eyes never leave mine. As he comes closer, I let myself devour him, my eyes roving over his appearance, cataloguing every tiny change in his manner or expression. Four years have changed him little, though his dark hair is a little longer and his skin has acquired a deep tan. I drink him in like a man in the desert, like a man parched with thirst. 

And suddenly, I'm scrambling to my feet and hurrying to meet him, my heart pounding like an animal in my chest. “Hi,” I say stupidly, unable to think of a single other thing to say, not even one line of my faithful Shakespeare. I stand there with my hands at my sides like we are strangers to one another, and maybe we are. I'm not allowed to hug him— I won't let myself, not if he doesn't reach first. 

“Hi,” echoes James, his face serious. Then he's hugging me, so tightly I feel like I might crack, and I bury my face in his shoulder just to breathe him in. He smells different, like sea and lemon soap and a laundry detergent that I don’t recognize. 

“I knew you'd come,” says James as we break apart, his hands coming up to cradle my face. “I knew you'd get it, I knew…”

“You did?” I'm incredulous despite myself. I didn't even know if I had gotten it, not until I saw him appear on the beach. 

“I hoped,” he admits, with half a smile. “I hoped you would. I came here every day.”

“I wasn't sure I'd find you,” I say, one confession for another. 

“I know,” James says softly. “I'm sorry.” His thumb brushes gently over the top of my cheekbone.

“I...where have you been?” Not my finest change of subject, but I can't bear the way he's looking at me right now, deep and searching, like he's seeing past my face into my soul. Like he’s been waiting for this moment as much as I have, like he feels the same twisting desire drawing us together that I do. 

He blinks at me but recovers quickly. “Just up the road from the beach. An old house. I-I'm renting it from this woman—”

“James,” I interrupt, my hand still clutching at his shoulder. I can feel his warmth through his shirt, firm and steady. “Please.” I don't even know what I'm asking for, just that I can't bear to stand on this beach any longer, but James seems to understand. 

He shuts up immediately and grabs my hand, tugging me along behind him. I follow him down the beach, away from the car I've left unlocked in the parking lot. 

James’ house is one in a row of narrow white clapboard houses, which are sandwiched together so tightly they almost look like teeth. The roof is leaning a little, and as we hurry up the path, I see the paint curling off the boards in long white strips. 

He sees me looking and half-shrugs as he unlocks the door. “No one would look for me here,” he says, almost sheepishly, and I have to agree. It's a far cry from his parents’ house in California or even our dorm in the tower at Dellecher. 

“So no one else knows?” I ask, trailing after him as he steps inside. I'm thinking of Filippa, whose sharp clever eyes never seemed to miss a thing. 

James turns to look at me, the sunlight through a nearby window falling across his lovely face in a fractured pane. He shakes his head. “Just you.”

I swallow hard. Here in the closed space of the house, where it really is just me and James, my skin buzzes like a live wire. I quell the urge to shift my weight back and forth, and force myself to stand still. 

James just looks at me, steady and slow, his gaze drifting across my face and down over my body. I wonder despite myself what he's seeing, whether I’m the same as I was last time he saw me or whether I've changed. “Oliver-” 

“Can I have some water?” I blurt, the words pushing out of me in one sudden shot. “Please?” James looks surprised, but nods. He disappears through a doorway into what must be the kitchen, leaving me standing alone in the foyer in the half fading afternoon light. 

I'm not really thirsty. I just needed a moment. My head is swimming a little with how fast everything has happened. An hour ago I was alone. Two days ago I thought James was dead. But here he is, alive and hale, clattering around a kitchen right across a wall from me. I hear the squeal of a tap turning and the sound of water. Alive. James. For a moment I feel so unspeakably angry; at him for lying and disappearing and faking his own death. For killing Richard, even though I understand why. I lean into that feeling, that hot coil of anger, and force myself to feel it. Then it dissipates, deflating like a poked balloon. 

I hear the screech of the tap again, and James walks back into the room, handing me a glass of water. I nod my thanks and chug half of it just to be polite. James just watches me, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. He keeps sliding from looking fiercely happy to looking awed, and I'm not sure which one is worse. I'm scared, I think. I can admit that to myself now, in the privacy of my own head. The way he looks at me scares me. The way it makes me feel. 

I put the glass down on the little mail table by the door and clear my throat. “So…” I say, a little awkward. “Is that your living room?”

James blinks, like he's waking up a bit, and I wonder where his head was just then. “Yeah,” he says, pushing off the wall he was leaning against towards the living room. “Come on, I'll give you the tour.”

The tour ends up being a three-minute perambulation around the bottom level, where I see a tiny kitchen that spills out into an eating area, which twists and becomes the living room. The living room is cramped and bare and there are photo frames on the wall of generic landscapes designed to appeal to out-of-towners. I stand by one of them, staring at it, thinking of something to say while James loiters near me. 

“It's just temporary,” James offers suddenly. I twist around to look at him and he lifts one shoulder, almost sheepish. “This place. At least, It was at first.”

“I like it,” I say lamely. I don't really, mostly because it's unfamiliar. So far I haven't seen one thing that’s obviously James’, and it makes me sad to think of him living here for four years and not leaving a single trace. 

James levels a disbelieving look at me. “No, you don't.”

“No,” I agree. I'm nervous, I realize. And James isn't helping, what with how he's just standing there in the middle of the room where the dying afternoon sun falls on him and lights up his brown skin. I get distracted with how one strand of hair curls off his hairline in a perfect spiral before I realize how obviously I'm staring. I feel myself flush. 

James is looking too, I realize, and I wonder if he has been all this time, and if I was just too stupid and confused to notice. His gaze is a heavy weight that I can feel like a physical thing pressing against my skin in all the places his eyes linger— my wrist, my shoulder, the spot on my jaw that I always miss when shaving. I swallow, hard, and his eyes track the movement. 

Then he laughs, sudden and fond, and the spell breaks, as though the whole room just stopped holding its breath. “Christ, Oliver, you're not wearing shoes.”

I realize as he says it that I must have taken them off in the car and in my panic this morning, never remembered to put them on. I laugh too, a little embarrassed. “I didn't realize.”

James shakes his head at me, smiling widely, the first real smile I've seen from him in years. I smile back, helpless, caught by the bright happiness on his face. “Oliver, I…” he begins, trailing off, stepping closer to me until he's just a step away. His eyes flick down to my mouth, and my want returns in full force, and I forget about my shoes or anything else on my mind. 

My hand moves of its own accord, and I watch from somewhere above my body as it comes up to trace the line of his jaw. James catches my hand in his when it lingers, traitorous, over the stubbly plane of his cheek, and folds his fingers through mine. He brings our joined hands down to his chest and lays the palm of my hand flat against his chest. “Oliver,” he says again softly, and it’s an answer to a question I hadn’t even begun to ask. I can feel how fast his heart is beating, how measured and careful his breath seems in the mere inches of space between us. James sways towards me like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, his forehead coming to rest gently against mine. I tilt my face up towards him— I can’t help it, I tell myself, he’s just so close—and our noses brush. He exhales, sharp and fast. I’m holding my breath.

Has anyone else ever felt like this before? I can’t imagine. 

I couldn’t for the life of me tell you which one of us leans in first, only that when we do, the kiss feels as inevitable as anything. Carnations bloom within my chest; stars collide and wink into existence outside the window; one hundred car alarms go off across the state. A ray of sunshine falls for a second on every place I have ever stood and dreamt about James. Or at least, all of that could have happened. It certainly feels like it, but if it did, I wouldn’t have noticed. I have only space for James. 

I had imagined what kissing James would be like, really kissing him, nearly every day of my time in prison, and the reality is still better than any daydream I could have concocted. It’s better than every miserable sonnet. At Dellecher, I’d thought it might feel wrong, dirty in a sexy sort of way, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t even feel right. It feels inevitable. My whole life, hurtling towards this kiss with James, here, in this house in Del Norte. 

One hand is tangled in my hair, the other clinging to the back of my shirt in an iron grip. That grip is the only thing that betrays any urgency; James kisses me like he has all the time in the world. He kisses me so long and slow and thoroughly that I can feel myself blush up to the roots of my hair. I’m paralyzed with it, mired in it, how good it feels to get what I want but never dared to think I’d be allowed to have. 

“Oliver,” he says again, panting, breaking away from me suddenly. His grey eyes are dark, his hair wild and sticking up from the tug and grasp of my hands.

“I love you,” I blurt out, and though I hadn’t planned to say it just then, I mean it. Then: “ _Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service_.” 

James’ face breaks into a smile. It's the most beautiful, devastating thing I've ever seen. “Oh,” he says, and kisses me again.

This kiss is not anything like the first. This kiss is a train barrelling off the tracks; it’s a runaway horse right out of the stable. It sprints farther and faster than I intend it to, with me just hanging on for the ride, my hands fisting in the soft material of James’ shirt as he pushes me up against a nearby wall. My back hits the drywall with such force that a painting hanging nearby crashes onto the floor. I can hear the telltale sound of glass shattering, but James doesn't seem to notice or care. 

I’m thankful for the support of the wall. My legs are treacherously weak, and every brush of James’ tongue against mine sends another tendril of electricity down my spine. I feel drunk with it, almost dizzy. I want every inch of James’ skin pressed against mine, without clothes or space in the way. “James,” I begin and he laughs against my mouth. 

“ _It is my soul that calls upon my name; How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like soft music to attending ears._ ” He whispers into my skin as he starts to trail kisses down my neck, the words making me shiver. 

“James,” I say again, reluctantly, because I don't actually want him to stop. “Bedroom, upstairs.”

James lets out one shaky breath, his hand pausing in its sneaky path towards my belt buckle. “Counterpoint; couch, right here.”

It's a compelling argument, and for one moment, I entertain the idea of sinking onto the couch and pulling James down on top of me, but I know I'll end up with a stiff neck. And I want to see James fully, to take my time, and to fall asleep listening to him breathe beside me, steady and slow and undeniably alive. “Bed,” I say as firmly as I can manage with thousands of butterflies alive in my stomach. “I'm too old to let you fuck me on the couch like a teenager.”

“Fuck,” says James thickly, pushing away a little to look at me in the eyes. He stares at me for a moment and whatever he's looking for in my eyes he seems to find. “Okay. Yeah. Bed sounds good.”

He leads me up a narrow rickety staircase, and through a short hallway until we reach an open door that leads to a sparsely decorated bedroom. In fact, it's not decorated; the walls are bare white, the bed made and tucked in with crisp hospital edges, the nightstand empty save for a half-drunk glass of water and a pair of glasses I know James secretly needs to read. It doesn't look like someone's been living here for a week, let alone four years.

“God,” I say with a laugh, the words sliding out before I even think to stop them. “How come you weren't this neat in college?”

The beat of silence that follows is fraught. I could kick myself— I forgot how sensitive James can be, how sensitive he'd be about this. James looks stricken, his face white where he’s standing in the doorway. By mentioning Dellecher, I've broken the fragile spell that's been cast over us this far. I've invited Richard into this space with us, allowed him to ruin another precious moment, reminded James of prison and of the worst moments of our lives. 

“Ten years,” James says slowly, his voice wavering. “I'm so sorry. I should have done something, I should have-” He's starting to sound panicked now, and I cut him off before he can continue, desperate to head this off at the pass so we can get back to kissing.

“Stop!” It comes out with more force than I intended and James actually flinches. I cross the room in a few strides and put my hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “James, it was my choice. I wanted to. I would never have let you go to prison.”

“But-” he says, his eyes sliding away from mine, and I cut him off again. 

“ _Such is my love, to thee I so belong, that for thy right myself will bear all wrong._ I wanted to,” I say as clearly as possible. “Don't you get it? I wanted to.”

“ _All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,_ ” he replies, stubborn as ever, his grey eyes suspiciously watery in the low light. 

“ _What's done cannot be undone_.” I will him to understand that I mean it, that I don't blame him, that I'd make the same choice a thousand times again. 

He looks at me intently. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“Everything,” I say honestly. “Always.” Because I already have, of course, even though I sort of wish I hadn't. Even so, who else knows him like I do? Who else can either of us be truly honest with? it's true. I can see James exactly as he is; his mysteries brought into focus, his darkness thrown into startling light. There's no pretense here; I know him completely, and he knows me. How many other people can say that?

“Okay,” he says. “Thank you. Okay.”

I hold out my hand to him, a wordless question, and he takes it, his skin warm against mine.

I lead him away from the doorway into the bedroom and for a moment, I'm reminded of an old Greek myth, of Eurydice and Orpheus, and I'm scared to look back at the ghost behind me in case he vanishes into thin air. But I curb the impulse, and once I reach the bed, I look back and James is still there. 

“Come here,” I say, and then I kiss him again, pulling him closer to me. The eager, almost feverish atmosphere from before returns as quickly as it disappeared, and soon James is pushing my shirt over my head and fumbling with my belt. 

I curse as James slides one hand into my underwear, heat blooming at the base of my spine. “Fuck,” I say and my voice sounds wrecked already, just from this. 

James kisses down my jaw and mouths at my neck as he continues to stroke me. Then he sinks down to his knees in one slow, fluid motion. 

My mouth is painfully dry, and I feel twenty years old again. “I'm not going to last very long,” I warn. 

He smiles at me, quick and dirty, then presses a light kiss to the skin above my belly button. I have to wonder if it would have been like this at Dellecher; if we would have been able to be this gentle with one another or if it would have been quick and furtive and drunken, with us not speaking in the morning. “I really want to suck your dick,” James says, his voice low. “It's okay if you don't last that long, I want to taste you anyway.”

I'm dizzy with just the prospect of James’ mouth on me; I'm not sure I can handle it actually happening, but I nod anyway, my pulse racing. 

James pulls my underwear down and takes the head of my dick into his mouth, swallowing me down with an ease that seems practiced. A swirl of complicated emotions rise up in me at the thought but I tamp them down, since what James is doing with his tongue is infinitely more important. I wrap one hand in his silky hair and lose myself in the feeling, heady and dangerous as it is. 

Soon, however, even the deep controlled breaths I am taking are not enough to keep me away from the edge and I have to tug on James’ hair to get him to stop. He lifts up his head and releases me with a soft pop, giving me a questioning look. “What's wrong?” he asks, his voice raspy and hoarse. He sounds absolutely wrecked, and my stomach gives a little flip at the thought. 

“Nothing,” I say, because absolutely nothing is. “Just, if you want to fuck me, I need you to stop otherwise I'm going to come.”

James’ mouth drops open a little in surprise. “Oh,” he breathes. “I didn't..are you sure?”

I nod so quickly it'd be embarrassing if I wasn’t so turned on. “Yes, please, I'm sure—if you want to, that is..”

James kisses my hip bone gently and nods. “Of course I want to, I just wanted to make sure you did..”

“James,” I say sternly, pulling him up to eye level. I push him onto the bed and begin to work on taking off his shirt. “You are being very sweet. Now stop treating me like I'm a blushing virgin and fuck me already.”

He closes his eyes and laughs. “Okay, but next time you're coming in my mouth.”

Next time. I firmly push all the questions I want to ask away. “Deal,” I say. 

A few minutes later, I am lying on my back trying not to writhe in the sheets as James fingers me open. He's methodical, thorough, focused, and it startles a laugh out of me when I realize he's making the same face he does when he's memorizing lines. 

“What is it?” he asks me, adding more lube. 

“Nothing,” I say, my voice petering out at the end abruptly as he slowly pushes another finger into me. “Just thinking about- you.”

My voice sounds high and wavery, even to myself. “If you're still thinking, I'm not doing it right,” says James teasingly, twisting his fingers until he brushes up against something inside of me that startles a moan out of me. “You sound surprised,” he says. 

“I am,” I say, as he brushes that spot again. “I've never really done this before. With someone, anyway.”

“Oh,” says James softly. “I have,” he adds. “Not often.”

A sudden jealousy rises up in me, so strong and so bitter that it makes my head spin. I hate the thought of James with anyone else, even though I knew he must have done it before. A memory surfaces; James heading up the stairs to our room, followed by Wren. I'm angry suddenly, that Dellecher has managed to creep into my thoughts once again. I don't want to think anymore, not of anything that isn't James. 

“Come on,” I say, pushing at his arm. “C’mon, I'm ready.” 

James removes his fingers carefully and puts on a condom. He leans over me, lines himself up, and pushes slowly in. It’s–not painful, exactly, but it is uncomfortable, a stretch and a burn somewhere that I've never really felt it before. When James is fully seated, he stops still and shudders, his head dropping forwards to rest in the crook of my shoulder. I can hear him swear softly, his breath ghosting across my skin. “James,” I say, my voice borderline frantic. I feel almost hysterical, like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. “Move, please.”

And he does. 

Soon, we've built up a rhythm, him pulling out slowly then slamming back in hard, every stroke dragging against the bundle of nerves inside me that makes pleasure arc through my veins. I claw at the sheets, one leg wrapped around his waist urging him forwards. I am whining, moaning, so out of my mind with need that I feel reckless with it, entirely not myself. James is everywhere, every inch of my skin plastered against his, his mouth pressed to my neck, his warm hands running up and down my thighs. 

A particularly hard thrust has me keening, a litany of broken pleas falling out of my mouth. “James, James, please, fuck, please, harder, harder, fuck me harder, please–” I break off suddenly, moaning loudly despite myself as he complies. 

He raises his head a little to look at me, and I can see the golden ring around the grey in his eyes that I love so much. “If you keep moaning like that,” he pants, his thrusts never faltering. “I'm not going to last.”

“S’okay,” I almost slur, feeling close to drunk with how good it feels. “Want you to come. Want you to come while you're inside me.”

He swears, his pace quickening. Every nerve in my body feels like it's alight as I feel the heavy weight of his cock press against me. I'm struck by the sudden need to feel his lips on mine, and I strain upwards to meet him in a kiss. Then James drops his head again, mouthing at my shoulder, and dimly I can hear him chanting “fuck, fuck, fuck….” under his breath. I revel in the fact that I'm making him feel this good, that I get to have him like this. But I want to hear him come. 

“Come on, James,” I say, my voice ragged. “You've been waiting long enough.” He shudders, and thrusts into me one more time. One of my hands flies down to clutch at his ass, pulling him impossibly deeper into me. I can feel his dick twitch once, and then he's coming with a low gasp into my ear.

He stays there for a long moment, then he reaches down to my cock and strokes me hard, once, twice, three times. “Oliver,” he says quietly, staring at me, his voice rough. And it's enough for me to hear him say my name with that expression on his face, almost reverent, that I come immediately and harder than I have in years, my back arching off the bed. 

Afterwards, James pulls out carefully and disposes of the condom. I'm too boneless to help, an utterly useless pile of jelly. He looks at the mess of come on my stomach. “We should clean up.”

I shake my head, and put on a feeble sort of voice. I don't have to fake much. “I don't think I'll ever be able to move again.”

James laughs. “Okay, fine.” He gets up and wanders out of the room, returning moments later with a wet washcloth. He cleans off my stomach gently, tosses the cloth away, and curls up beside me before pulling a sheet over us. “We'll change the sheets tomorrow,” he says, slinging an arm around my waist. 

“Mhmm,” I mumble, my eyes already slipping shut. For the first time in years, I don't dream of anything. 

LATER

The warmth of sunshine streaming through the window is what finally wakes me up in the morning. I roll over, my muscles stiff, and glance at the clock on the bedside table. It’s nearly noon, and the bed beside me is empty and cool. I run my hand across the space, feeling the rumples in the fitted sheet where James had slept. After a moment of resistance, I sucumb to the urge and bury my face in the pillow beside me. I inhale a deep lungful of what must be James’ shampoo; light, lemony, unfamiliar. 

“Ahem.” The sound of a throat clearing has me sitting up with a start, to see James standing above me holding two cups of coffee. He looks amused. “What are you doing?”

I blush. “Don’t start.” 

James sets the mugs down on the night table and climbs back into bed beside me. “Okay,” he says, sliding closer, his tone mischievious. “I won’t.” He kisses me softly as one of his hands wanders down to rest on my hip. 

“So funny,” I mumble between kisses. “This feels like starting.”

James breaks away, hovering over me. His mouth is already kiss-bitten and red, his head framed like a halo by the afternoon sun coming in through the windows. “I’m starting something else.” The hand on my hip dances across my lower stomach, coming to rest briefly on the waistband of my underwear. 

“The coffee’ll get cold,” I say even as I'm pulling him down to rest on top of me, his chest against mine, our mouths colliding again. 

“Fuck the coffee,” says James, which makes me laugh, until his hand slips under my shorts and I choke on my laugh. 

EVEN LATER

“Can I ask—why Del Norte?” James’ head is resting on my shoulder, a few curls tickling my nose. We've been dozing, our coffee cold and untasted, and James’ answer is so long in coming that I wonder if he's asleep. 

“Where else?” says James, his voice still fuzzy from sleep and muffled by my shoulder. A finger skirts across my stomach, teasing, feather-light. I suppress a shiver. “That day was perfect.”

“Even with our clothes getting stolen?”

“Especially that.” James presses a kiss against my skin, his smile audible in his voice. I feel myself blush, as though he didn't fuck me into the mattress last night, as though I didn't have his cock in my mouth just this morning.

“That was the first time, you know,” says James after another long silence, turning to face me. “You know. When I realized that I loved you,” he adds when he sees my confused look. 

“You love me?” I can't help but say, as though I'm surprised. I am surprised, I realize, even though it's stupid.

“Yes, Oliver Marks,” says James with a smile, lifting himself up to lean over me. “I love you.”

“Oh,” I say. 

“Are you surprised?” asks James. 

“A little,” I admit. James looks at me, his expression a picture of disbelief, before dissolving into laughter. “What?”

“Nothing, just- you might actually be-” he gasps out. “- the last person in our friend group to know.”

“Well, you never actually said it back before.” I say defensively. 

“I kissed you!” says James incredulously, his voice still shaking with mirth. 

“I didn't want to assume!”

James stares down at me, his grey eyes fond, his smile impossibly happy. I want him to be this happy forever, and I know I'll do whatever I can to make sure that he is. “Well,” he says slowly, leaning down to kiss me softly. “I guess I'll have to keep saying it.”

“I guess you will,” I say, tilting my chin up for another kiss. Now that I've had him, I am greedy and demanding. I can't imagine how I've gone without kissing him this long. 

“I love you,” says James obligingly, between kisses that he leaves all over my face— the tip of my nose, my left eyebrow, the curve of my jaw. “I love you. I'll say it until you get sick of me,” he warns. 

My heart pounds. “That might be a long time,” I say carefully. “What if I never get sick of you?” 

“Then I'll say it forever,” says James, his smile bright, and it sounds like a promise. He kisses me again and again and again, until I stop counting. 

END SCENE

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to here, thanks for reading! Here are some quotes (mostly Shakespeare) that I desperately wanted to use but couldn't find a place to work in, and an alternate ending that I didn't like as much as the other one but liked too much to keep to myself. <3
> 
> ALT. ENDING: (from "I didn't want to assume!")
> 
> “Shakespeare would've had a field day with us,” I say suddenly, half a giggle escaping me before I can stop it. 
> 
> James looks at me askance. “Sorry?”
> 
> “Come on,” I say, the idea striking me as utterly hilarious. I nudge him gently in the side. “It's got everything he liked—intrigue, romance, a fake death, murder-” I realize a second too late that I've just fucked it up again by bringing up the murder and shut my mouth with a snap. 
> 
> James doesn’t seem to be upset though. He shakes his head at me, but it's fond and there's a laugh lurking in the fine lines around his eyes. “Who knows?” He says, his voice light. “There might even be a happy ending.”
> 
> QUOTES:
> 
> "I have immortal longings in me." — Antony & Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2. 
> 
> "I humbly do beseech of your pardon / For too much of loving you." — Othello, Act 3, Scene 3.
> 
> "For where thou art, there is the world itself / With every several pleasure in the world / And where thou art not, desolation.” — King Henry VI Part II, Act 3, Scene 2. 
> 
> "I can express no kinder sign of love, than this kind kiss." — Henry VI Part II, Act 1, Scene 1. 
> 
> "This is the very ecstasy of love." — Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 1.
> 
> "Whoever loved who loved not at first sight?" — As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 5, but originally by Christopher Marlowe in a poem of the same name. 
> 
> "Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream." Megara, Herakles by Euripides, trans. Anne Carson (of course). 
> 
> You can ask anything of me, and I'd do it. Yes to anything. Yes to all of it. (this one's mine, and it was going to be what Oliver says when James asks him to forgive him, but I thought it was a bit too much y'know?)


End file.
